30 Notable IT Executive Moves: June 2021

June’s big CEO shakeups include new CEOs at Toshiba America Business Solutions, Cybrary and Exabeam, plus executive changes at Google, Intel and Microsoft.

Office products manufacturer and distributor Toshiba America Business Solutions and cybersecurity firms Cybrary and Exabeam saw changes at the top, gaining new CEOs in June.

Meanwhile, tech giants Google, Intel and Microsoft were among the companies in June to bring in new leaders. Intel’s the result of a major restructuring of several of its departments.

[RELATED: 30 Notable IT Executive Moves: April 2021]

What follows are 30 notable IT executive moves from June 2021.

Hong Hao

In June, Intel announced a major restructuring of several of its departments. As part of the changes, the company appointed Hong Hao, the former head of Samsung’s North American foundry business, to the new role of corporate vice president of worldwide business development for Intel Foundry Services. The new role will have Hao lead “the formulation of IFS business strategies and execution of worldwide customer engagement plans to grow Foundry revenue and customer base,” according to an internal memo.

Nick McKeown also joined Intel in June to lead the Network and Edge Group split from the Data Platform Group. An internal memo said the leaders of the groups being folded into the Network and Edge Group — Dan Rodriguez, Tom Lantzsch and Hong Hou — will report to McKeown. McKeown was previously a part-time senior fellow at Intel, which he joined following the company’s 2019 acquisition of his company, Barefoot Networks.

Michael Karner

Google hired Gartner’s former vice president of sales and business development in June to drive worldwide growth in Google Workspace, previously known as G-Suite, as the cloud software giant goes toe-to-toe with Microsoft Teams.

Michael Karner’s title is Head of Google Workspace Evangelism for Google Cloud. He spent eight years in executive roles at IT research firm Gartner, including most recently as vice president of sales and business development in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Along with Karner, Google also hired Christopher Phillips in June as vice president and general manager of Geo at Google, according to his LinkedIn. Phillips will lead the team responsible for Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Maps Platform.

He previously worked for about six years as chief product officer and head of technology at Pandora until the 2019 acquisition by SiriusXM. He worked less than a year as an executive vice president at SiriusXM.

Michael DeCesare

Exabeam brought in former Forescout CEO Michael DeCesare in June to lead the company as the security analytics and automation vendor notched a $2.4 billion valuation.

The Foster City, Calif.-based security information and event management (SIEM) provider tapped DeCesare to replace co-founder and first CEO Nir Polak, who will remain with Exabeam as chairman of the board. Exabeam also announced a $200 million Series F funding round led by the Owl Rock division of Blue Own Capital, and promoted Chief Product Officer Adam Geller to also lead the engineering team.

DeCesare joined internet of things security vendor Forescout as CEO in February 2015 after four years as president of platform security vendor McAfee, which was owned by Intel at the time. He raised $80 million in a January 2016 Series G funding round, and brought in an additional $116 million through an October 2017 Nasdaq initial public offering that valued Forescout at $800 million.

But DeCesare’s final year with Forescout proved to be more challenging. He agreed in February 2020 to sell Forescout to private equity firm Advent International for $1.9 billion in February 2020, but the two sides ended up in court after Advent attempted to walk away from the acquisition in May.

Kevin Hanes

Cybrary hired longtime Secureworks Chief Operating Officer Kevin Hanes in June as CEO to help the workforce development platform deepen its tentacles in cybersecurity.

The College Park, Md.-based cybersecurity company tasked Hanes with developing more of a channel sales motion as well as exercises that allow security practitioners to test their skills in real-world scenarios without having to set aside too much time. Hanes spent more than eight years as COO of cybersecurity services vendor Secureworks, and he replaced Cybrary co-founder Ryan Corey, who moved into an advisor role.

“Cybersecurity expertise was my number one concern [at Secureworks],” Hanes told CRN at the time. “The pain point that I had and the solution that Cybrary has really got me interested in this job.”

Michelle Ragusa-McBain

Cisco hired Michelle Ragusa-McBain in June as its global lead and channel evangelist for MSP and XaaS.

This is a return to Cisco for Ragusa-McBain, who entered Cisco’s Global Academy fresh out of college and worked at the tech giant for about 13 years, leaving in 2017 as a segment marketing and operations manager. She most recently worked as a vice president of global channel and digital strategy at JS Group.

Cisco also hired Kanyatta Walker in June as vice president, digital enterprise solutions operating officer, according to her LinkedIn. She is a leader of Cisco’s IT operational excellence team, overseeing the strategy, governance, compliance and end-to-end business operations required for digital transformation. She is also on the advisory council of Women in Technology.

Walker previously worked at ADP for more than four years, ending as a vice president of information technology operations. She also spent more than 12 years with Accenture.

Bill Crawford

In June, IBM appointed Bill Crawford vice president of digital trust at IBM Security. Crawford previously spent more than 10 years with Information Insights, an IBM partner from San Diego. Crawford was president at Information Insights, according to his LinkedIn.
According to a post about Crawford on IBM’s website, Crawford helped to found Information Insights in 2010 to help customers with data, risk and protection.

Also in June, IBM promoted Albert Ho to vice president of strategy for IBM Systems and director of strategy for IBM Storage, according to his LinkedIn. His responsibilities now include all of IBM Systems portfolio across the IBM Mainframe, IBM Power and IBM Storage business lines.

His goal is to drive delivery of hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities as well as integration of next-gen technologies such as quantum computing, according to his LinkedIn. He also leads business strategy and portfolio management for IBM Storage across enterprise storage hardware and software offerings.

Ho has worked at IBM for more than 10 years and helped to launch IBM Storage Insights, a software-as-a-service, AI-enabled storage management platform; and IBM Spectrum Discover, a cognitive data management solution.

Chad Gagnon

Ooma, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based provider of cloud-based telephony and home security among other services, hired Chad Gagnon as a channel sales manager, according to LinkedIn.

Gagnon previously spent more than five years with King of Prussia, Pa.-based Evolve IP, growing the remote working services provider’s channel presence. Evolve IP is No. 207 on CRN‘s Solution Provider 500.

He also served as a channel sales director at hybrid hosting provider UnitedLayer and a regional channel director at cloud services provider ShoreTel.

Nima Badiey

In June, GitLab hired Nima Badiey as vice president of alliances, making him responsible for GitLab’s partnerships with hyperscalers, cloud operators, platform providers and independent software vendors, according to LinkedIn.

Badiey previously worked for more than two years at Google, leading the tech giant’s container, Kubernetes and Anthos partnerships, according to his LinkedIn. In this role, he onboarded 300-plus technology, original equipment manufacturer, platform and channel consulting partners.

GitLab also hired Harsh Jawharkar as vice president of product and portfolio marketing. He previously worked at Atlassian, most recently serving as vice president of marketing.

In June, CRN ranked GitLab to its list of the 10 coolest DevOps tools of 2021 (so far).

Toby Buschini

Ermetic, a cloud infrastructure security provider with offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Israel, appointed Toby Buschini its vice president of worldwide sales in June. Buschini joins Ermetic with 25 years of experience in security and enterprise technology sales, according to a company statement.

He spent more than five years with security vendor Fortinet, according to LinkedIn. At Fortinet, he served as a regional sales director leading the enterprise sales team in 13 states. His resume includes sales roles at Juniper Networks, FireEye and McAfee.

In November, CRN dubbed Ermetic one of the 10 hottest cloud computing startups of 2020.

Avi Kulkarni

Avi Kulkarni joined Cognizant as senior vice president of research and development.

Based in Portola Valley, Calif., Kulkarni comes to Cognizant after more than a year with Accenture heading the clinical sector within Accenture‘s Applied Life Sciences Solutions group, according to Kulkarni’s LinkedIn.

In June, Malcolm Frank, president of digital business and technology practice at global solution provider Cognizant, announced his plan to retire on Sept. 1.

Tom Young

SAP has moved Tom Young into a vice president role in charge of revenue management for the tech giant’s cloud business group.

Young has been with SAP since at least 2007, according to his LinkedIn. He most recently served as head of customer experience business development in North America, leading a team of business specialists to develop and coordinate growth strategies for the group, coordinating across multiple demand generation teams including partners and marketing.

In April, SAP’s CEO Christian Klein heralded the software giant’s sales growth in cloud computing on its quarterly financial results call.

Sanjib Sahoo

IT products and services distributor Ingram Micro appointed Sanjib Sahoo executive vice president and chief digital officer in June. Sahoo reports to CEO Alain Monie and leads the company’s customer and user experience development, according to his LinkedIn.

He previously worked at XPO Logistics for more than four years, leaving as a chief information officer responsible for digital transformation of the company’s intermodal, last mile, truckload and other North American and European transportation divisions.

Ingram Micro recently closed its $7.2 billion acquisition by private equity powerhouse Platinum Equity in a blockbuster deal that frees the distributor from financially troubled Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.

Scott Maccabe

Toshiba America Business Solutions President and CEO Scott Maccabe retired June 30 with chief operating officer Larry White taking over the role on July 1, according to a company statement.

Maccabe has moved into an advisor role with parent company Toshiba Tec Corp. Maccabe took the CEO job in July 2013, according to the statement. He saw record annual profits for the company in six of those years and expanded Toshiba‘s market share to an all-time best.

Satya Nadella

In June, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expanded his reach by adding chairman of the board to his roles, taking over for former Symantec CEO John Thompson.

Along with Nadella’s added responsibilities, Microsoft hired Giles Walker in June as global chief technology officer of retail and consumer packaged goods. Walker previously worked as a regional director for Cognizant’s Microsoft Business Group. Cognizant is No. 6 on CRN‘s Solution Provider 500.

Microsoft hired Michael Skowrunski in June as chief information security officer of national security programs. His resume includes more than 20 years at IT consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, including consultant and associate roles.

And the tech giant hired Juan Rivera last month as a vice president of engineering, specializing in calls, meetings and devices for Microsoft Teams. He previously spent 20 years with Citrix, ending as a senior vice president who led the engineering teams that deliver Citrix Workspace Services. He also serves as chairman of the Jayuya STEM Scholarship, a charity foundation he founded that serves students in Jayuya, Puerto Rico.

Shawn Bice

Shawn Bice started his new role on June 1 as president of products and technology at Splunk. He previously managed Amazon Web Services’ lineup of database products.

Bice reports to CEO Doug Merritt and oversees all Splunk technical divisions including product, engineering, design and architecture operations, as well as the CIO, CTO and chief information security officer functions at the company.

His appointment came less than a month after former CTO Tim Tully left Splunk to join venture capital firm Menlo Ventures as a partner, overseeing that firm’s Menlo XV fund for early-stage startups.

Debbie Scott

French IT consulting firm Capgemini hired Debbie Scott as vice president of the SAP Practice in June.

Scott joins Capgemini from IBM, where she worked as a partner in the SAP Industrial Sector. She previously spent more than nine years at SAP, leaving in 2019 as vice president of the platform and technology center of excellence.

Capgemini is No. 7 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500.

Jeff Lebowitz

Jeff Lebowitz returned to Cybereason in June as vice president of global business development, a role that will have him work with strategic partners to improve organizations’ cybersecurity, according to his LinkedIn.

He previously worked at Cybereason as chief business development officer, leaving in 2017, according to his LinkedIn. He helped grow the company to tens of millions of dollars in software-as-a-service annual contract value.

He previously served as chief revenue officer at Robust Intelligence and worked for more than a year at VMware, leaving as worldwide sales lead for AppDefense specialists.

In April, Boston-based Cybereason told CRNtv that it is doubling down on its North American channel with the launch of its managed security services provider program to “build a stronger path to profitability” for current and future MSSPs.

In February, the company snagged channel leaders from Check Point and Fortinet.

Tibor Fabry-Asztalos

Dell Technologies appointed Tibor Fabry-Asztalos senior vice president of the telecom systems business in June.

Fabry-Asztalos joins the tech giant after more than three years with Extreme Networks, ending his time with Extreme in the role of senior vice president of product and engineering, according to his LinkedIn.

He also worked for more than three years at Brocade and more than 14 years at Cisco.

Tetsu Suzuki

Okta hired Tetsu Suzuki in June as a vice president of strategy and operations, according to his LinkedIn.

He previously worked for more than a year with Guidewire Software in a similar role and for more than seven years at Salesforce.com, leaving in 2020 as a senior director of program management.

In June, CRN named Okta Privileged Access and Identity Governance to its list of the 10 hottest new cybersecurity tools and products of 2021 (so far).

Deepak Chawla

UiPath, a New York-based robotic process automation software provider, appointed Deepak Chawla senior vice president of global product support in June.

He previously spent eight years with Nutanix, leaving as senior vice president of worldwide support. He grew the support staff by 70 times its size during this period, according to his LinkedIn. His resume also includes stints with Cisco, Citrix and VMware.

UiPath went public in April.

Susan Hayes

Santa Clara, Calif.-based computer networking company Arista Networks hired Susan Hayes in June as vice president of manufacturing.

Hayes previously spent 13 years at Cisco, leaving as vice president of supply chain, according to Arista’s website. She led Cisco’s launch of Telepresence Video and Nexus 9000 Data Center Switches, two billion dollar product categories.

Sam Berg

Sam Berg joins Cloudera following the company’s purchase of Waltham, Mass. -based data lake building software provider Cazena, a Cloudera managed services provider partner, in June.

At Cazena, Berg was vice president of sales, business development and strategy, according to his LinkedIn. In April, CRN named Cazena to its list of the coolest data management and integration software companies of the 2021 Big Data 100.

Now at Cloudera, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif., Berg has taken on the role of vice president of cloud sales, according to his LinkedIn.

Berg’s resume includes a vice president of sales role at SnapLogic and an account executive role at SAP.

Mark Hill

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based hybrid cloud data services and management company NetApp hired Mark Hill as vice president of enterprise strategy in June, according to his LinkedIn. His focus is on driving go-to-market transformation.

Hill previously worked at Cisco for four years, leaving as a vice president responsible for transforming Cisco into a software-centric monetization model. He also worked at Microsoft for more than 24 years, leaving in 2016 as vice president of open source sales and marketing.

In May, NetApp unveiled significant changes to its channel partner program aimed at better rewarding partners who focus on digital transformation and helping their clients more quickly move to the cloud.

Matt Scudder

Chicago-based Microsoft Azure automation provider Nerdio appointed Matt Scudder vice president of sales in June, according to his LinkedIn.

Scudder previously worked for more than two years at Lakeside Software and for seven years at Dell, leaving in 2017 as a cloud client computing account executive.

In January, Nerdio launched its newest solution for managed services providers aimed at improved deployments of Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop, now known as Azure Virtual Desktop.

Ken LeBlanc

Ken LeBlanc joined EPAM Systems in June as vice president of technology solutions, according to his LinkedIn.

He previously worked as chief information officer and senior vice president at Iron Mountain, leaving the latter in 2018. He spent 16 years with EMC Corp., leaving in 2016 as vice president of digitization and service management. At EMC, he led the company’s “IT as a service” strategy, according to his LinkedIn. He left the year of Dell’s blockbuster $67 billion acquisition of EMC.

EPAM is No. 23 on CRN‘s Solution Provider 500.

Steve Curtis

Palo Alto Networks appointed Steve Curtis in June to the role of senior vice president of ecosystems for AI-powered security offering Cortex and cloud security offering Prisma, according to his LinkedIn.

Before Palo Alto Networks, Curtis worked for eight years at Accenture, leaving as a managing director leading growth and delivery of Accenture’s cybersecurity, DevSecOps and identity management services for communications, media, technology and aerospace clients.

In February, Palo Alto Networks rolled out the most comprehensive update in the history of its NextWave Partner Program, debuting three specializations and a sales enablement platform as well as opening up the company’s entire Prisma Cloud portfolio for resale and restricting SMB technical support in the United States exclusively to the channel.

Mark Abramowitz

Mark Abramowitz joined ServiceNow in June as vice president of product marketing, platform and creator workflows, according to his LinkedIn.

He worked at Salesforce on and off for more than 14 years, most recently in the role of senior vice president of product marketing for Salesforce’s Service Cloud, according to his LinkedIn.

ServiceNow has been on an acquisition spree this year, announcing in May the acquisition of Lightstep, a developer of system observability technology, and announcing in March the acquisition of Intellibot, a Hyderabad, India-based developer of robotic process automation technology.

Joe Koury

After three years as president of Carr Business Systems, Joe Koury is now regional president at Xerox Business Solutions.

He joined Xerox subsidiary Carr, a Commack, N.Y.-based office technology solutions provider, in 2018. Before that, he worked for Xact Data Discovery for three years, according to his LinkedIn.

Xerox also hired David Ardies as vice president of channel sales for its western region in June, according to his LinkedIn. He previously worked at Kyocera Document Solutions for 14 years.

Ron McCutchen

Nvidia hired Ron McCutchen as vice president of IT business applications and engineering in June, according to his LinkedIn.

McCutchen previously worked at Google Cloud for more than a year, most recently in the role of head of IT engineering sales, Plan 2 Pay and channel partners for Google Cloud. Before that, he spend more than four years with Intel Corp., leaving in 2019 as vice president of IT for enterprise application delivery.

In May, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s new software and hardware solutions for enterprise customers will drive the “next major wave of AI” as the chipmaker reported new records for quarterly revenue as well as data center and gaming sales for its first quarter.

Rachel Hayden

In June, Greenville, S.C.-based distributor ScanSource appointed Rachel Hayden senior executive vice president and chief information officer, according to a company statement.

Hayden will lead planning and execution of the company’s global IT strategy, reporting directly to ScanSource CEO Mike Baur. She previously worked at Just Born, serving as chief information officer, according to the statement.

Baur spoke to CRN in May about consolidation in the channel and investing more in its Intelisys telecom business.